Cisco Systems announced today that it intends to pay $95m to acquire Inlet Technologies, a provider of video ingest, transcoding and streaming products.

Cisco says the deal will strengthen the capabilities of its Videoscape TV platform, which has been designed to allowing service and content providers to deliver video content across multiple IP networks.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately $95 million in cash and retention-based incentives in exchange for all shares of Inlet. The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to be complete in the first half of calendar year 2011.

Inlet, which was founded in 2003, has achieved impressive growth recently as the demand for multi-platform content distribution has taken off globally. Last month Inlet issued a press release stating that its 2010 revenue had doubled versus the company’s 2009 revenue, and that it had expanded its customer base by 70%.

While that press release did not reveal Inlet’s actual revenue, the company did disclose its 2009 revenue to Inc. Magazine, which ranked Inlet at #647 in its 500|5000 in 2010 and named it the 45th fastest growing software company in America.

Capitol Broadcasting, the parent of WRAL Tech Wire, is among the investors that are being handsomely rewarded for backing Inlet Technologies with a nice “exit.” On Friday, Cisco said it would pay $95 million for the Raleigh video technology firm. That’s at least six times Inlet’s estimated annual revenues for 2010 and nearly five times the amount of venture capital Inlet raised over the years.